Critical Geographies of Childhood and Youth: Contemporary Policy and Practice

Abstract

Critical Geographies of Childhood and Youth: Contemporary Policy and Practice, edited by Peter Kraftl, John Horton, and Faith Tucker, Bristol, UK: The Policy Press, 2012. xiv + 279 pp., US$42.95 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-8474-2845 Children and youth are the future decision-makers and contributing members of society; the role of policy in children and youth's lives is important. In this context, policy is a proposed or implemented course of action by a regulating body such as a national or state government, a school district, or a business's board of directors. Critical Geographies of Childhood and Youth highlights why geography matters, profoundly, to any analysis of youth policies and professional (p. 2), while emphasizing the geographical and historical backgrounds that are essential to understanding the state of contemporary childhood and youth, and the policies relating to them (p. 2). This book takes a critical geography perspective and successfully utilizes the principles of discourse analysis in examination and summation of childhood and youth policy issues with the goal of addressing both applied and theoretical viewpoints. The book is composed of four main parts: first, it examines the role of geographical processes in formulating and implementing childhood and youth policies at the national level, second, it explores the effects of these policies on children and youth's lives, third, is a review of the geographical contexts from which policies influence and interfere with children and youth's daily experiences, and finally, the book concludes with a reflective summary of the youth policy and practices discussed and gives recommendations for future policy and related research. Critical Geographies of Childhood and Youth provides a succinct and diverse analysis of the role of space and place in the geographies of children and youth (e.g. education, work, transportation system). The authors build a strong case that children and youth are the social capital of the present and future and that policy needs to be less interested in children as children and more as human beings (p. 268). There is also a great deal of importance put on scale issues in childhood and youth geographies, for example, the difference in implementation and impact of local, regional, national, and international policy. Within the context of space, place, scale, and the implications of children and youth as social capital, the emphasis on the overarching role of governmental influence and the role of policy, as well as policy-making regarding children and youth, is consistently scrutinized and discussed in detail. The chapters provide examples of achievements such as enhanced school meal policies in the UK, the impacts of sustainable development curriculum in the UK, and transnational youth policy in Malawi; as well as breakdowns in the system such as youth homelessness policies in Wales and the inclusion of children and youth in heritage conservation in Brazil. …